A disk drive comprises a rotating disk and a head actuated over the disk to magnetically write data to and read data from the disk. The head may be connected to a distal end of an actuator arm that is rotated about a pivot to position the head radially over the disk. The disk may comprise a plurality of radially spaced, concentric tracks for recording data and servo information on the disk. The servo information may be read by the head to determine the position of the head over the disk. The disk drive may also include a buffer for temporarily storing data to be written to the disk and data read from the disk.
When the disk drive receives a write command from a host (e.g., a host processor), the disk drive may temporarily store the data for the write command in the buffer and subsequently write the data from the buffer to the disk. Some disk drives do not post a write complete to the host until the disk drive has verified that the data was properly written to the disk. This may result in a delay in the completion of the write command as seen by the host.